Congressionally directed spending for construction projects - ST

Joseph's mercy care services, INC. (mercy care) is a federally qualified health center and the only healthcare for the homeless designated health center in atlanta. The organization serves over 17,000 homeless and economically or socially disenfranchised individuals and families annually in georgia's fulton and dekalb counties, including the city of atlanta. Fulton and dekalb are sprawling counties covering over 800 square miles and 1.8 million people, with drastically disparate rates of poverty, crime, and disease across neighborhoods and racial/ethnic groups. In 2023, 67% of adult patients and 14% of pediatric patients were experiencing homelessness; 67% lived at or below 200% of the federal poverty level; 63% of adults and 23% of children did not have insurance; and 37% were best served in a language other than english. Importantly, 48% of mercy care's patients were black or african american and 41% were hispanic or latino/a, demonstrating the disparate vulnerability among these racial and ethnic groups. Services include dental care, primary and preventive health care, integrated behavioral health and substance use services, vision care, health education, TB screenings at shelters, breast and cervical cancer screenings, peer support, street medicine, and recuperative care for medically fragile men and women experiencing homelessness. Additionally, mercy care provides a comprehensive continuum of HIV/aids services that includes prevention, education, rapid testing and counseling, and early intervention services. FY 2024 community project funding (CPF) from hrsa will be used to purchase health equipment and software critical to fulfilling mercy care's mission of providing high quality healthcare to all individuals regardless of ability to pay. Equipment includes an ADA-compliant, wheelchair accessible mobile medical van to conduct street medicine activities that will enable teams to transport clients with disabilities to clinics or hospit ALS for further treatment; an ultra-widefield fundus imaging system for mercy care optometrists to provide the current standard of care for vision patients; and a digital panoramic x-RAY imaging device to enable mercy care dentists to adequately visualize patients' teeth, upper and lower jaws, and surrounding structures and tissues. Funding also will support the use of pharmacy management software, which is essential for managing pharmacy workflow and inventory, and the addition of remaining departments to the organization's electronic health records system. Lastly, the CPF award will enable the upgrade of one fixed clinic's security system to ensure the safety and security of clinic staff and patients.